When deciding that I wanted to feature epic road trips on my website, my thoughts turned to clients that I knew had stories from their experiences that they may be willing to share.
I was thrilled when Marty sent through details of his family’s fantastic adventures accrued over four California fly drives in the last few years...
We are a family of six and have travelled to California for each of the last four summer holidays for a fly drive adventure.
Amanda is very patient with us and superbly arranges and organises everything from the flights, to the car hire to all the accommodation. We can be a little indecisive until we feel we have the right route and hotels, but Amanda just smiles and returns quickly with an amended itinerary until she gets the job done.
We love California. It offers so much for a family of all ages, from great cities, national parks, beaches and baseball. We all enjoy the atmosphere of baseball games which are reasonably priced at around $30 per person and a fabulous family experience and in fact, Amanda has planned our trips around games in San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego.
Driving is straightforward. Car hire and collection is easy and it’s simple to get around using Google, whose travel times are pretty accurate.
In San Francisco, our hotel of choice is the Handlery Union Square, a beautiful renovated building built in 1908. In addition to being in a great location, it has an outdoor pool - something very important to us. We like to hire bikes specifically to ride across the Golden Gate Bridge and then take the ferry back from Sausalito.
Yosemite National Park is a family highlight which feels like stepping back in time with nice rivers in which to swim and amazing scenery. We have always stayed at Cedar Lodge in El Portal just 8 miles from the National Park and stay for three nights giving us two full days to really enjoy and explore the National Park. Accommodation here is more basic - cabins and lodges - but they are set in and close to stunning scenery and are all about getting you back to nature.
Santa Barbara is a fabulous city with great shopping opportunities and super restaurants. Our accommodation here is the enjoyable Best Western Pepper Tree Hotel, a Spanish style hotel with lovely gardens and two swimming pools.
Our number one beaches are in San Diego, a perfect place to relax and spend family hang out time. We love Paradise Point on Mission Bay as our base. It’s spread over 44 acres, surrounded by a one-mile sandy beach and offering everything a family would want including five swimming pools, basketball and tennis courts, an 18-hole putting golf course and beach fire pits to sit around chilling late into the evening.
In 2018, we had to change plans at the very last minute due to the awful fires in Yosemite. Amanda re-routed us to Mammoth Lakes, a brilliant alternative where we had an awesome experience on a boat at Convict Lake with a barbecue on board. We even cooked bread which we ate in the middle of this stunning lake with mountains in the background as well as finding another lake to swim in and witnessing a family of 3 bears wandering past (no sign of Goldilocks though).
Huge thanks to Amanda for helping us create some wonderful memories and we look forward to many more to come.
Marty Gallagher